Roland Houwie contacted us with an update on the car and it’s history, he wrote:
”Rusty as we call KTX was built in Gotenburg in April 1966. Tthe car was moved to Wales and sold new on th e 13th of July 1966 to a Mr JH Treharris from Cardiff. The next part is a bit vague but the next owner was a Mr Micheal Williams from Bridgend.

The car was then sold to Mr Johan Wiklund on the 21st of May 1968 a Finnish national living in the UK. I have email correspondence from him and he bought the car with the Ruddspeed updates already installed. In the Email he explains that it has been 45 years since he had this car and all is very fuzzy. From memory the car had bilstein lowered suspension, uprated carb needles advance springs in the distributor and about the cyl head he isn't sure. He also ran 5.5" rear wheels

He owned the car until the 4th of Feb 1970, in this period he competed in a number of road rallies the one to mention is the Isle of Man Manx special stage unfortunately did not finish as he had a loss of brakes. Mr Wiklund took the car in the summer of 68 to Finland and in the summer of 69 to Sweden where it received a major service from Volvo works in Gothenburg. The car was than sold to a private dealer in maidenhead who had the car in stock until Oct 1971.

1 Oct 1971 the car was bought by a Mr Peter Newlands the price was 1 Ford Cortina. During ownership the car had an engine fire as a fuel line to the carb had come undone. Fire was extinguished with a cloth and the car pushed home as it was only 300m. After fitting new fuel lines and a couple of leads the car was operational again (damage done by the fire to the inside of the bonnet has never been repaired and remains to this day).

The car went to France in 1975 and after return it went into a narrowly fitting garage where the battery gave up and the car remained there for 25 years. This owner remembers the Ruddspeed cylinder head and tag on the side.

In 2002 the car is sold to a Mr Andrew Crellin. He puts the car back on the road, he did extensive electrical work by splitting all the circuits, adding fuses and relays, which are still in the car today and works superb. He also replaced the camshaft with Volvo K series I believe and installed a M41 with overdrive, he also replaced all pistons and rings and had the crank balanced and installed a competition clutch. And finally he resprayed the front end when a fender was replaced.

In the correspondence I had a Mr Stourbridge also mentioned who owned the car early 70’s but can’t place him unfortunately. The car ends up being sold to Mcdonald Classic Cars in 2011 and on the 2nd of Sept 2011 Clive stokes becomes the new owner.

In 2013 the car is sold to James Cashmore, he has added all the stickers and lights to the car to give it the rally feel...servicing was done by Classic Volvo specialist as Mr Cashmore was going to attend the cross-country tour lands end John O'Groats, but this never happened.

I bought the car on the 21st of Feb 2021 from Mr Cashmore who also owns a 123GT. In my ownership I have tried to delve into the Ruddspeed heritage to on avail as there are no records. From what I can make up in the documentation with the car the cyl head has disappeared around early 2000's.

Rusty has a massive file which I have dissected into maintenance and history. The maintenance file has over 200 receipts and other evidence going back to 1968.

As for the history file, I have correspondence from almost all previous owners hence this complete story.”

Ruddspeed Serial Number: N/A

We would love to hear from anyone has more information on the car or would like to add to the history please feel free to contact us here at Ruddspeed.
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